


Tenerife Sea

by GubraithianFire



Series: Tumblr Commissions [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anderson Is a Dick, Established Relationship, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Husbands, John Loves Sherlock, Lipstick & Lip Gloss, M/M, Nail Polish, Non Binary John, Other, Sally Donovan Appreciation, Sherlock Loves John, Sherlock is a Good Boyfriend, Transphobia, john is genderqueer, more than a good boyfriend a good husband
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 19:47:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6870988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GubraithianFire/pseuds/GubraithianFire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Should this be the last thing I see</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I want you to know it's enough for me</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Cause all that you are is all that I'll ever need</i>
</p><p>John is thirty-ish. He knows who he is, he know what he is. Or does he?</p><p>Commission fic for Anton @<a href="http://captainjohnwatson.tumblr.com/">captainjohnwatson</a>. Thank you darling! xx</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tenerife Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captainjohnwatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainjohnwatson/gifts).



> Anton requested nb!John, supportive!Sherlock, awesome Sally and dick of an Anderson. Hope I got everything covered!! 
> 
> The song in the summary is "Tenerife Sea" by Ed Sheeran, which I was listening to on loop while writing this fic. 
> 
> Enjoy! xx
> 
>  **DISCLAIMER** : I myself am a trans boy, and have struggled with the discovery of myself. So my take on John is very personal, and doesn't reflect a common experience amongst genderqueer people.

“Transsexual woman, age thirty-ish, white.”

Sherlock nods and strides to the corpse lying at the back of an alley.

Lestrade precedes him, while John follows in his husband’s stride, as usual. Just beside the corpse, Sherlock crouches and takes out his magnifying glass.

“Idiots,” he mutters, then, to John, “This person was not transsexual; they were non binary, and preferred they/them as pronouns, it’s all in their wallet.”

“Non binary?” John asks tentatively. He’s never heard the term.

“It means someone who identifies between the male-female spectrum.”

“You mean people who are neither male nor female?” John asks, almost laughing.

Sherlock gives him a _look_. “Gender is a spectrum, John.”

John staggers back, the words hitting him hard somewhere in his chest. Somewhere he had buried a long, long time ago.

“This is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard,” Anderson comments snidely, striding over. “This person was just a tranny.”

“Oh shut it, Anderson,” Sherlock snips, gritting his teeth.

“Oi,” Donovan interjects, “That was way out of line, Philip.”

John would want to reprimand that transphobic dick of Anderson as well, but he’s somehow frozen in his spot. He cannot speak.

The whole day, as he follows Sherlock’s lead, the words keep coming back to his mind.

Gender is a spectrum.

Gender is a spectrum.

_Gender is a spectrum._

For real?

They tackle a killer and fill in paperwork, and they are snuggled up on the couch, Sherlock’s head on John’s chest, when John asks it.

“A… a spectrum you say?”

“Hmm?” Sherlock hums sleepily, leaning in John’s touch where he’s threading his fingers through Sherlock’s hair.

John clears his throat, awkward and embarrassed.

“I mean, is gender really a spectrum?”

But Sherlock is already asleep, knackered after the case, drooling on John’s jumper.

John smiles down softly at his husband, and ponders.

 

***

 

The next day, Sherlock pecks John on the lips and flies the house, claiming he has “important matters with Molly at the morgue.”

John tries not to think about the events of the day before; he makes himself tea and watches a bit of telly, enjoying his day off work.

But it’s all useless.

“Damn it,” he growls, getting up and grabbing his laptop.

He types a plain, “What does non binary mean?” in the query bar and waits for the results to appear.

For the whole morning, he reads.

He reads definitions, interviews to gender nonconforming people, and so on.

He doesn’t know why he is so interested, but he is. No, not interested. It borders on _obsession_.

Then, he freezes.

He has just found the blog of a non binary person assigned male at birth who uses they/them as pronouns and recounts their experience.

The person in question says they identify as a demiguy, which, John learns, means a person who identifies as male but not fully.

They keep on talking about how when they were younger they had felt there was something… different within them, but they never knew what until they had stumbled on a definition of “demiguy”.

John is completely _awed_ by this story. He has no clue as to why.

He deletes his internet history and goes back to cleaning the flat.

 

***

 

For days, John keeps thinking about that demiguy person, and finally resolves sending them an anonymous question on their blog, while Sherlock is out doing god-knows-what.  

“How did you know you were non binary?”

The answer is almost immediate.

“Hello anon!” It reads, “Thank you for your question! Well, that’s a bit hard to answer; it’s not something you _know_ , but rather something you feel. I know it seems stupid to say, but when I first knew there were options beyond the stereotypical male/female binary, something in me… clicked. I don’t know how to explain it. And I looked at myself in a mirror and tried to say out loud, “I am a man,” and I couldn’t. Because I’m not a man. Hope this helps, good luck! xx.”

Feeling so stupid he almost laughs, John gets up and walks to the bathroom.

He takes a deep breath and looks into the mirror, squaring his shoulders.

“I am a m-” he starts saying, but his words die in his throat.

The realization hits him so hard he bends over, bracing himself on the sink.

He’s not a man.

He’s never been one.

 

***

 

Sherlock stares as John mechanically makes tea, as he gives Sherlock his cuppa without even ducking to plant a small peck on Sherlock’s lips, like they usually do.

He is distracted, doesn’t works on cases, they haven’t had sex in a fucking _week_.

He deletes his internet history every day, and barely speaks to Sherlock.

The signs are all there.

John has a lover.

He must have.

Otherwise why would he behave like this?

Sherlock cries, one evening John has to work late. He comes home with all sorts of different smells, and immediately goes to bed.

Sherlock even finds traces of make-up on him once.

Sherlock knows he’s not enough for John. He’s always known it. And it’s not like he wasn’t expecting this – John is the best man who has ever walked the earth, who wouldn’t be attracted to him?

Sherlock has had enough, of evenings spent at work, of avoiding eye-contact and all kinds of physical contact.

He bags his stuff and sits on the couch to wait for John.

“What the hell…?” Is the first thing that escapes his husband’s mouth, when he comes home. His eyes fly from the bags to Sherlock with hurt and confusion in them.

Traces of lipstick on his lips, hair mussed.

Trying not to cry, to maintain some kind of dignity, Sherlock squares his shoulders and stares at John in the eye.

“I’ve always known this moment would come, so let us not beat around the bush. I will vacate 221B as soon as possible, so that you and your new… companion can come and live here.”

John looks shocked.

“What?” He breathes.

“You perfectly know I despise repetition,” he snaps, “I just said that you and your lover can come live here, that I’m going.”

“What are you talking about?” John roars, his face a mask of innocence. He’s almost believable.

“Oh please, John,” Sherlock quips, “The late nights at work? The make-up on your face? Deleting you internet history? I’m not the idiot you make me out to be.”

“Wha- no. Sherlock, love, you got it all wrong,” John tries to soothe Sherlock, placing a hand on his shoulder, but Sherlock draws back.

“Don’t touch me, please,” he croaks out, tears barely held back.

“Sherlock…” John murmurs, a sad look in his ocean blue eyes.

John reaches out again, and this time Sherlock lets him, sagging  in his arm with a sob. John manhandles him to the couch, and they sit, Sherlock snuggled up on John’s chest, crying.

He feels empty.

“Love, love listen, I… I’m genderqueer,” John says, trembling voice, scared tone.

Sherlock stops crying, looks up into John’s ever-deep, sincere eyes. “What?”

John looks afraid; he’s shivering.

“I, I joined a support group for non binary people, that’s where I went when I worked late. I deleted my internet history because it was full of transgender websites and the make-up you saw on me was mine. I… I like lipstick,” John says in one deep breath, eyes closed, cheeks red with embarrassment.

Sherlock stares, dumbfounded, the pieces slotting together.

Sherlock starts laughing, so relieved he can barely breathe, and hugs John tight.

“I love you, I love you, I love you…” Sherlock kisses him everywhere, “I’m sorry I thought you were leaving, I’m sorry…”

John hugs him back just as tightly, crying. “We’re fine, we’re fine… please never pack your stuff again, I felt like dying when I saw the bags.”

They spend two entire hours, lying on the couch, kissing and murmuring quiet vows, caressing each other’s hair, running idle fingers on each other’s body.  

“Non binary, uh?” Sherlock eventually asks, and John blushes beet red, a frightened look on his handsome features.

“I think I’m genderqueer, yes,” John croaks out, and Sherlock kisses him.

“You’re still the same person I married. The grumpy, brave, wise, kind man I married.”

John smiles, tears in his eyes, and kisses Sherlock again.

 

***

 

Sherlock does research.

For days after John’s coming out, Sherlock researches. He doesn’t even take cases, so busy he is.

John loves him immensely.

“Which pronouns do you prefer?” He asks over breakfast, eyes boring into John’s.

“I… my mates at the support group use ze/zir with me, but if it’s too hard for you-”

“Bullshit,” Sherlock cuts him off, “Ze/zir it is.”

 

***

 

“Name? Still John or would you rather change it?”

John looks up from zir newspaper. “John is fine,” ze says.

“Good,” Sherlock replies, and keeps on reading his guide to gender in silence.

 

***

 

John is already sleeping, when Sherlock asks zir that question.

“What about make-up?”

“I like lipstick and nail polish, now go the fuck to sleep,” Ze groans.

 

***

 

“I bought you a present,” Sherlock says one day, storming into 221B with a bag.

“What is it?” John asks, curious. Sherlock offers zir the bag, and John opens it, peering inside.

Nail polish. Dozens of bottles of nail polish.

“I…” John opens zir mouth, but nothing comes out.

Ze kisses Sherlock.

“I love you,” ze says, and kisses zir husband again.

 

***

 

Sherlock goes with John to some of the support group meetings.

Everyone is awed.

Sherlock doesn’t misgender anyone, is incredibly open-minded and holds John’s hand the whole time.

“You’re one lucky person,” Tyler, John’s closest friend in the support group says.

John looks at Sherlock reading intently some flyers and smiles softly.

“I know.”

 

***

 

The first time John goes to a crime scene wearing make-up, ze is scared. Sherlock reassures zir he will be there the whole time, and that if someone has something to say, well, that’s their business because John looks _fantastic_.

And ze feels so.

With a little bit of red lipstick and zir nails painted lilac, as well as a soft trace of eyeshadow (that matches the nails polish) John feels zirself for maybe the first time in zir life.

But fear clutches viciously at zir stomach, fear of what precisely, ze doesn’t know.

The policemen at the crime scene stare at zir with their mouths hanging open, a stunned look in their eyes. Sherlock glares at them all, and no one says anything.

Lestrade’s only comment is, “You look good, John,” while Donovan compliments zir nails.

“Now, John is the doctor here, let zir examine the body,” Lestrade says, previously warned by a text from Sherlock of John’s preferred pronouns.

John feels something warm and beautiful in zir chest at being called with the right pronouns.

“Zir?” A snide voice asks from behind them.

John freezes, while Sherlock clenches his fists.

“It’s my preferred pronoun,” John explains calmly, rounding on zir feet to stare at Anderson right in the eye.

“You a tranny as well?”

Anderson’s voice is mocking, cruel, and hits John right where it hurts.

Ze was feeling good about zirself, and now… Now ze just wants to go home.

“Sherlock, let’s go,” Ze starts saying, but an hand on zir forearm stops zir.

“Phil, shut the fuck up. John is looking _gorgeous_ today, and ze and Sherlock deserve to be here more than you do, since you’re a mediocre pathologist, while they will most certainly solve this case. So piss off and leave. Zir. Alone.”

It’s Sally who has spoken; bravely and with just the right amount of anger in her voice.

Anderson cowers under her stare, and leaves.

“Thank you, Sally,” John says, and ze means it. Despite she calling Sherlock a ‘freak’, this was a brave act of kindness.

“Never you mind, princess,” she jokes, winking at zir.

John chuckles, and looks at Sherlock, who is ogling the scene, clearly lost.

“I don’t understand,” he says.

“She did something kind, Sherlock, that’s what happened.”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” Sherlock moans, and John laughs.

Ze thinks ze has never been happier.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> If you'd like to commission a fic too, just hit me up @[caspu](http://caspu.tumblr.com/).


End file.
